They work tirelessly all day under the harsh rays of a blazing sun, the stench of death and destruction around them. They are a team of Jewish heroes who are working around the clock with one mission: the recovery of human bodies.

The SA Friends of the Beit Halochem Zahal Disabled Veterans Organisation was established in Johannesburg in 1982, its primary goal being to help and support Zahal disabled veterans by raising funds to help them return and resume their normal lives as soon as possible.

There’s a popular weekly satirical show in Israel called Eretz Nehederet. In a recent episode, an actor playing Benny Gantz, the former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and newcomer to Israeli politics, is asked how he’s feeling.

Devotion to the cause of the State of Israel flourishes in the most unlikely places, even in societies where the Jewish presence is small to non-existent. Such is the case in Mozambique, where the work of Beth-El Associacao Crista Amigos De Israel - Mozambican Christian Friends of Israel - testifies to how much can be achieved by those inspired by their Christian faith to promote the Israeli cause, despite adverse conditions.

JNF’s unique “Blue Boy Box” now lives at King David Linksfield Pre-Primary so that children of each generation learn the importance of tzedakah (charity or welfare). It is the responsibility of Jews all over the world to build Israel, develop it and nurture it as the home of the Jewish nation

“Knowledge is Light” was our school motto when I was a child in Durban. The importance of education was made clear to us from as far back as I can remember. It wasn’t taken for granted. A good education was a privilege.

(JTA) Norwegian rapper not charged with hate speech
A Norwegian rapper who cursed Jews while performing at an event in Oslo promoting multiculturalism will not be charged with hate speech, because his words may have been criticism of Israel, prosecutors said.

Did Israeli soldiers violate international law by deliberately targeting unarmed children, journalists, health workers, and people with disabilities during the past year of violence along the Israel-Gaza border?

(JTA) After the New England Patriots beat the favoured Kansas City Chiefs to reach their third straight Super Bowl – their amazing ninth in less than 20 years – CBS sports analyst Boomer Esiason made an intriguing statement, namely that Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

We are winging our way towards Human Rights Day (21 March), the first public holiday of the year, which coincides with Purim. I can’t help but wonder about our concept of human rights and what it means, not least of all, to our government.

President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed in parliament last week that South Africa intended to downgrade its diplomatic presence in Israel. The foreign affairs bureaucracy was working “feverishly” on the matter. “The decision to downgrade the embassy in Israel is informed precisely by the violation of the rights of Palestinians and we are therefore putting pressure on Israel. But at the same time, we are saying we are willing to play a role and ensure there is peace,” said Ramaphosa.

Undeterred, and in spite of the hate-filled disparagement that spewed forth when Shashi Naidoo uttered positive comments about Israel and Jews last year, Haafizah Bhamjee penned a reasoned and sensible article on Israel and the Palestinians in the SA Jewish Report of 22 February.

With Prince William’s historic visit to Israel this week, all eyes have been trained on the Jewish capital. It may have taken 70 years, but the first official visit by a member of the British Royal family began in Israel on Monday, when William, the Duke of Cambridge, arrived in Tel Aviv.

Some 5 600 emissaries (shluchim) from Chabad-Lubavitch from all over the world gathered at the Pier 8 warehouse in Brooklyn, New York this week for the opening of their four-day annual international conference and banquet, 75 years after the arrival of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, from Europe.

One of the questions that haunts the story of Purim and moves silently through the lines of the Megillah is clear and chillingly simple: How could Jews have chosen to remain in Persian Shushan? It was so clearly an environment in which anti-Semitism was so prevalent that a genocide could be planned and almost implemented without comment by broader society.

“The greatness of our nation is that our people are great. We are a nation of heroes, of people with good and decent moral fibre who will not tolerate our country being plundered!” So said Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein in Pretoria this morning.“This is a struggle for accountability and justice,” Goldstein told the crowd (which included prominent Jewish CEOs like Adrian Gore, Stephen Koseff and Michael Katz). “This struggle is about sovereignty. The power of the people always triumphs in the end.”

Jeenah: Under BDS, Palestine solidarity irrelevant

by
Ant Katz
| Mar 10, 2016

Minhaj Jeenah is chairman of the Muslim Youth
Movement's Western Cape region, which is in turn a member of the National Coalition for
Palestine – which he admits is a BDS-SA-inspired coalition and which he believes is failing in its work.

While not as quick to specifically name BDS-SA as the
culprit in his piece “Why the Palestine solidarity movement in
South Africa has to evolve – or become irrelevant” as was Prof Steven Friedman, Jeenah makes no bones about who he holds accountable for the shambles
that the SA anti-Israel lobby finds itself in.

To be clear, Jeenah is no friend of Israel, he is simply
saying that the anti-Israel lobbyists in SA are doing a hopeless job, losing
ground and risk becoming irrelevant. Click here to read this piece in its
original form TheDailyVox.co.zaor see below.

While BDS’ profanities and theologies were certainly not
called for, they are most telling of where the organisation, which has received
several black eyes during this week’s Israel Apartheid Week event, finds
itself.

I am publishing Minhaj Jeenah’s critique verbatim.

Why the Palestine solidarity movement in South Africa has to
evolve – or become irrelevant

A Palestinian flag flies at a pro-Palestinian rally in Gauteng. Photo by Ihsaan Haffejee

Why the Palestine solidarity movement in South Africa has to evolve – or become irrelevant

The Palestinian struggle has captured the imagination of black South Africans since the 1970s, but of late the movement has been gripped by a dangerous form of populism. It’s time for the movement to undertake a critical shift in approach towards one that is principled and immersed in the programmes of the decolonisation movement in South Africa, argues MINHAJ JEENAH.

Disclaimer

Let’s be clear, the militarised occupation of Palestine by Zionists is one of the starkest and most vicious manifestations of the violence of colonial white power that perpetuates racism, sexism and violent capitalism. The ideological basis of Zionism is to create a community of separateness at the incremental extermination of an indigenous population.

The Palestinian struggle for self-determination is a righteous struggle which is necessarily linked to the Black condition. Its resistance in all its forms, violent or otherwise, is a legitimate resistance.

Let’s be clear to set the terms of our engagement through this post: I’m not interested in compromising on or discussing these actualities.

Background

The Palestinian struggle has captured the imagination of black South Africans since the 1970s – particularly resonant was the Palestinian armed resistance against Zionist colonialism. While exiled South African liberation movements had various forms of contact with the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Palestinian solidarity within South Africa remained very much a Muslim issue until the mid-80s when the Israeli-apartheid analysis started taking shape, promoted by some within the Black Consciousness Movement and smaller left groups.

Post-1994 saw certain significant changes to Palestine solidarity work, most notably during the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000 when it was addressed more strongly as an issue of national liberation, and South African civil society was lobbied.

After the call from Palestinian civil society for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel in 2005 and the launch of Israeli Apartheid Week, campus-based Palestine solidarity activism was strengthened and focused. Since then, the global BDS campaign helped define and intensify Palestine solidarity in South Africa – through campus-based structures, civil society, BDS South Africa, Muslim and Christian groups, anti-Zionist Jewish groups and unions.

There were also numerous efforts to form broad coalitions to coordinate solidarity work. The most recent such effort was the National Coalition for Palestine, formed during the 2014 massacre in Gaza, and now dominated by the NGO BDS South Africa.

Towards a critical shift

In the recent past Palestine solidarity work has been gripped by a dangerous form of populism.

After the massive solidarity march in Cape Town in 2014, Palestine solidarity activism has been characterised by the #BoycottWoolworths campaign. As part of a broader consumer boycott, this campaign aims to pressure Woolworths to remove Israeli products from its shelves. In what was, arguably, a bad tactical move Woolworths was targeted for a consumer boycott because the campaign was deemed “winnable” – for a number of reasons. There have been a few voices of dissent against the campaign, within the movement and externally, challenging the moral and tactical value of the boycott.

The “winnable” strategy, which is an approach that has dominated the BDS campaign in South Africa, is problematic and unprincipled – it reduces struggle to a list of feel-good victories rather than moving towards substantive change. Alas, almost two years later, the campaign has seemingly lost steam.

Nevertheless, #BoycottWoolworths succeeded in mobilising some (especially young) activists and now needs to be re-strategised into a new, more rigorous strategy. The campaign should build on its success and now cast the intense focus directly on Israeli products, not particular stores. #BoycottWoolworths must now become #BoycottIsrael.

There has also been dangerous courting with the ANC, with some solidarity groups becoming apologists for the ruling party and feting it in rallies as if it’s the vanguard of Palestine solidarity. Although the party has stated its commitment to the BDS campaign, its role has been contradictory, with its government often working contrary to these commitments.

It’s deeply concerning and offensive that apparent support for the Palestinian course is often used (particularly before elections) as an ANC buffer to pacify people sympathetic to the course at the expense of interrogation of problematic policy (and, yes, to get votes).

This inability to properly politicise Palestinian solidarity and approach it with principle rather than just tactic has also seen many ad-hoc airy-fairy events that result in minimal understanding of the complexities of Palestinian activism. Admittedly, there have been more substantive campaigns, such as the current campaign to arrest Shimon Peres, but these have not led to large-scale mobilisation.

There is, now, a need for the Palestine solidarity movement in South Africa to undertake a critical shift in approach.

Fallism

International solidarity is fundamentally complex. It requires astute strategy, radical empathy, moral consistency and a very particular commitment to disrupt the politics of differing oppressions.

The South African movement for solidarity with the Palestinian people needs a process of difficult reflection. It must divorce itself from reductionist praxis and undertake serious mass engagement with the political complexities of the Palestinian struggle and internationalism.

The movement must be claimed as a radical collective movement that is intersectional and decentralised. It must direct both our revolutionary anger and our love for freedom, justice and equality through principled, uncompromising and intelligible strategies.

It is, therefore, also clear that solidarity for the Palestinian struggle must be immersed in the programmes of the decolonisation movement in South Africa. The movement will be compromised if it regards its victimhood to the exclusion of other colonial sufferings.

Key to these solidarity strategies is a more strengthened commitment to force unconscious capital, government and academic institutions to submit to the call from Palestinian comrades to isolate Israel. Consistency in praxis, also, includes uprooting and discomforting Zionist sentiment, in order to de-normalise and remove racist ideology from our spaces.

Israel must fall.

Minhaj Jeenah is the Chairperson of the Muslim Youth Movement Western Cape region, which is a member of the National Coalition for Palestine. Follow him on Twitter @minhajjeenah

This is part of a special series called Apartheid 2.0, which The Daily Vox is running this month in partnership with AlJazeera’s Palestine Remix.